


Sun-Kissed

by clonewarsandchill



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Clonecest, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Freckles, Kissing, M/M, Medical Inaccuracies, The 501st - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-12-02 05:15:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11502513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clonewarsandchill/pseuds/clonewarsandchill
Summary: He knows his brothers’ bodies down to the minute detail. He knows because it’s hisjobto know, but also because knowing is both the most painful and the most beautiful way to let them go, one by one.But the freckle. That’s new.





	Sun-Kissed

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write some Jessix porn, but instead I wrote this mushy, angsty fluff. Enjoy!
> 
> If you want to talk about clones on Tumblr, follow my partner and I's blog [CloneWarsAndChill](https://clonewarsandchill.tumblr.com/).

They’ve been on this force-damned sand planet for _five weeks_ when he notices it. Three suns blaze on the edge of its pale blue sky, bleaching the paint on the clones’ armor and equipment until everything looks as worn and tired as they do. The days are sixteen standard hours long and the nights are only four, and with strong night breezes beating all their tents with sand, nobody’s gotten any sleep since they landed. General Skywalker complains to anyone that will listen to him and several who _won’t_ (both Kenobi and Tano ran out of patience for his sand-hating woes two weeks ago), and Hardcase has been to see Kix twice in the last week about the anxiety he gets when things are stagnant. Everyone’s hot and thirsty and sick of the sand’s grit in their food and blankets and body crevices.

But then, Kix notices it.

The _freckle_.

He knows his brothers’ bodies down to the minute detail. He knows every rippled scar, every slick-healed burn, every persistent armor rash and every kriffin’ _pimple_ in the 501st. He knows how everyone trims (or doesn’t trim) their body hair, which direction everyone’s penis slants, where every glide of ink or glitter of piercing resides. He knows about the scars that Dogma hasn’t let anyone else see (he’ll never forget the way his eyes widened and then ducked away, shamed, until Kix had whispered “oh, _vod_ ”), he knows about Echo’s fingernails chewed to the quick, he knows about the welts so often crisscrossing Rex’s ass and thighs and how Fives is both the one to make them _and_ the one to pilfer ointment from the medbay to help them heal. He knows because it’s his _job_ to know, but also because knowing is both the most painful and the most beautiful way to let them go, one by one.

But the _freckle_. That’s new.

It’s an hour before the planet’s demoralizingly brief nightfall, and already the heat’s being swept away on a roiling gust from the east. There was no battle today so there’s no one to tend to in the medical tent. Kix sits in the sand by torrent company’s crackling bonfire, listening to his brothers swap exaggerated battle stories and laughingly call each other out on obvious lies, and goes over his own reports on a datapad while there’s still enough light to comfortably do so. After awhile, Jesse joins him, slinging an arm around his shoulders and crowding in close to nuzzle his mouth over Kix’s impeccably buzzed hair.

“You’re drunk,” Kix notes, amused, as Jesse’s tainted breath reaches his nose. He’d be annoyed – being inebriated when seppies are only a few clicks off is the kind of reckless behavior that Kix looks out for in brothers who’ve shown signs of stress, even if their Captain insists mental illness in clones is improbable – but he knows Jesse doesn’t have access to enough alcohol to be more than pleasantly tipsy. There’d been an amber bottle passed around during Skywalker’s card game earlier (an event that resulted in Skywalker having to take his pants off, a brief reprieve from the Jedi’s otherwise unflagging bad mood) but there’d been a _dozen_ men present. Even if he’d managed to hog most of the bottle, Jesse’s gaze is alert and responsive and only his grin is lazy – he’s sober enough to be safe, with Kix looking after him.

“Missed you, Kix,” Jesse says wetly, and then he’s kissing Kix, his minutely bulkier body forcing Kix down in a sprawl. He tastes like booze and the stale blandness of their ration bars, but Kix moans hungrily and licks into his mouth anyway, letting his husband pin him to the ever-shifting blanket of sand beneath them.

It’s good, so good.

A few of their brothers – Fives especially – wolf whistle from the fire, but their jeering fades back into their former conversation faster than Jesse’s greedy hands can start unclasping and peeling away armor. It’s getting dark fast, the sky’s pale blue burning into a sapphire that almost makes their stay on this miserable planet worth the dry eyes and chapped lips. Kix stares up at it, one arm flung out to hold his datapad away from harm, as Jesse gets him down to his boots and blacks and starts biting his nipples through the latter. He can hear his brothers, blessedly alive for the moment, still chattering, their voices a reminder of how their strong lungs and stronger hearts are still carrying them at the peak of life; his own chest aches with how grateful he is for every laugh he hears beneath the breeze.

“ _There’s_ that smile,” Jesse says, only slurring a little. He rolls Kix’s form-fitting shirt up over his chest and begins kissing at his ribs between words, “That’s the happy medic smile. S’my favorite.”

The freckle does not reveal itself until Jesse has had his fill of pressing sucking kisses all across Kix’s chest, worrying at all of the love bites already fading on his warm brown skin until there’s fresh color to them. His nipples, already pinpricked with purple from such adoring abuse, sting in the best way as Jesse tugs them between his teeth, nuzzling his face against Kix’s pecs until Kix raises his free hand and smooths his palm over Jesse’s tattooed scalp. Jesse tips his face up, eyes a little bloodshot but a _lot_ adoring, and Kix’s eyes are drawn to Jesse’s parted lips, damp with spit and –

It’s not _shock_ , exactly; it’s more like bright, trembling _surprise_. Jesse’s body is even more familiar to him than the rest of his brothers, mapped out not just medically but by taste and touch. Kix can note the barest hint of a scratchy throat in how it adds a subtle rasp to Jesse’s voice; he once called an impending cold a full week before Jesse had any real symptoms – and that was when they still thought clones were entirely resistant to mild illnesses. (As though even Kamino’s trove of researchers could account for the clones’ reaction to an _entire universe of constantly mutating ailments_. The arrogance of such a massive assumption – and its persistence, even now – astounded Kix regularly.)

The freckle is small and oval in shape, its dark brown pigmentation consistent with the few freckles Kix has seen on brothers outside of the 501st. It’s smooth and its color and outline is unbroken, and it sits on the far left side of Jesse’s lower lip, a subtle and likely imperceptible new addition to any glance _not_ belonging to the hawk-eyed medic of torrent company.

Kix reaches up mindlessly and swipes at it with his thumb, making sure it’s not a shadow or a stain, but the freckle remains, soft and rare and so _pretty_ Kix’s chest is aching again.

Jesse smiles, self-conscious, and raises at eyebrow at him. “What?” he asks, a bit of uncertainty along with the love in his tone, “Was I _drooling_ or something?”

Kix fights back the inextricable urge to cry. “No,” he says hoarsely, cupping Jesse’s face and continuing to tenderly skim his mouth with his thumb, “ _Force_ , Jesse, you’re _beautiful_.”

“Listen to you cursing like a Jedi,” Jesse mumbles to hide how flustered he is, face heating as he instinctively tries to avoid Kix’s sappy gaze. They’ve always taken turns being shy, the two of them, for as long as they’ve climbed into each others’ bunks; Kix thinks it’s a pretty natural response to having to define what romance is all on their own, isolated from any aspect of culture not directly related to their service to the Republic except in stolen glimpses. Intimacy between them has always been fraught and raw, and Kix loves every awkward, fumbling, too-honest minute of it.

“Did you notice this?” Kix asks, letting his datapad rest on the sand so he can utilize his free hand to start shucking the shell of Jesse’s armor. His voice, he knows, is low and rough, and he feels sexier than he should laying in sand with dozens of tents flapping around in the dark behind them.

“Notice what?” Jesse answers, straddling Kix’s hips to help get his chestplate off, “The freckle?” He tries to sound nonchalant, but there’s pride in his voice for his new uniqueness, an undeniable trait of individuality now residing on his skin. It’s a rarity that any brother would cherish. “Noticed it this morning. Must be all the sun.” He pauses, and Kix feels a tiny, nervous tremor run through him before he asks, painfully casual, “It’s not gonna _fade_ , is it?”

“No,” Kix says, even though he lacks the data to know for sure, “It’s all yours forever.”

“Ours,” Jesse says, turning into the hand still on his face to kiss Kix’s fingers. He tosses the top portion of his battle-battered, sun-bleached armor carelessly in the general direction of the bonfire’s trembling glow, a sin they both know would have Rex cussing them out for a week. “Our freckle.”

Maybe for normal people, _birthers_ , it would be a small, stupid thing.

But when Jesse leans down again and their lips meet, it feels like a monumental thing, like stardust converging into the beginnings of something more, something new. Kix licks and bites the tiny brown mark and feels Jesse groan and shake above him, grateful to be acknowledged, grateful to be more than another limp body in an armor case on Kix’s table. Or maybe it’s Kix who feels that way – indebted to whatever clone-sympathetic river of the force that’s allowing him to be here, _alive_ , tasting this beautiful new part of his life mate, unhurried and unhurt and blissfully in love; and, beyond the force, thankful to Jesse for sharing himself with Kix.

He knows everything about all of his brothers, especially Jesse; and now he knows this, too.

_Fin_


End file.
